The Maji Maji Rebellion (German: Maji-Maji-Aufstand), sometimes called the Maji Maji War (Swahili: Vita vya Maji Maji, Maji-Maji-Krieg), was an armed rebellion against German colonial rule in German East Africa (modern-day Tanzania). The war was triggered by a German policy designed to force the indigenous population to grow cotton for export, and lasted from 1905 to 1907.[1] The war resulted in 250,000–300,000 total dead, mostly civilians from famine.

After the Scramble for Africa among the major European powers in the 1880s, Germany had reinforced its hold on several formal African colonies. These were German East Africa (now Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, and part of Mozambique), German Southwest Africa (present-day Namibia), Cameroon, and Togoland (today split between Ghana and Togo). The Germans had a relatively weak hold on German East Africa. However, they did maintain a system of forts throughout the interior of the territory and were able to exert some control over it. Since their hold on the colony was weak, they resorted to using violently repressive tactics to control the population.[citation needed]

Germany began levying head taxes in 1898, and relied heavily on forced labor to build roads and accomplish various other tasks. In 1902, Carl Peters ordered villages to grow cotton as a cash crop (for export). Each village was charged with producing a quota of cotton. The headmen of the village were left in charge of overseeing the production, which set them against the rest of the population.

The German policies were not only unpopular, as they had serious effects on the lives of the natives. The social fabric of society was being changed rapidly. The social roles of men and women were being changed to face the needs of the communities. Since men were forced away from their homes to work, women were forced to assume some of the traditional male roles. Also, the fact that men were away strained the resources of the village and the people's ability to deal with their environment and remain self-sufficient. There was thus a lot of animosity against the government at this period. In 1905, a drought threatened the region. All that, as well as opposition to the government's agricultural and labor policies, led to open rebellion against the Germans in July.[citation needed]

The insurgents turned to magic to drive out the German colonizers and used it as a unifying force in the rebellion. A spirit medium named Kinjikitile Ngwale claimed to be possessed by a snake spirit called Hongo.[2] Ngwale began calling himself Bokero and developed a belief that the people of German East Africa had been called upon to eliminate the Germans. German anthropologists recorded that he gave his followers war medicine that would turn German bullets into water. This "war medicine" was in fact water (maji in Kiswahili) mixed with castor oil and millet seeds.[2] Empowered with this new liquid, Bokero's followers began what would become known as the Maji Maji Rebellion.

The end of the war was followed by a period of famine, known as the Great Hunger (njaa), caused in large part by the scorched-earth policy advocated by Gustav Adolf von Götzen.

Contents

The followers of Bokero's movement were poorly armed with spears and arrows, sometimes poisoned.[3] However, they were numerous and believed that they could not be harmed because the Germans' bullets would turn to water.[2] They marched from their villages wearing millet stalks around their foreheads. Initially, they attacked small outposts and damaged cotton plants. On 31 July 1905, Matumbi tribesmen marched on Samanga and destroyed the cotton crop as well as a trading post. Kinjikitile was arrested and hanged for treason. Before his execution, he declared that he had spread the medicine of the rebellion throughout the region.[2] On 14 August 1905, Ngindo tribesmen attacked a small party of missionaries on a safari; all five, including Bishop Spiss (the Roman Catholic Bishop of Dar es Salaam) were speared to death.[2]

Throughout August the rebels moved from the Matumbi Hills in the southern part of what is now Tanzania and attacked German garrisons throughout the colony. The attack on Ifakara, on 16 August, destroyed the small German garrison and opened the way to the key fortification at Mahenge. Though the southern garrison was quite small (there were but 458 European and 588 native soldiers in the entire area), their fortifications and modern weapons gave them an advantage. At Mahenge, several thousand Maji Maji warriors (led by another spirit medium, not Bokero) marched on the German cantonment, which was defended by Lieutenant Theodor von Hassel with sixty native soldiers, a few hundred loyal tribesmen, and two machine guns.[2] The two attacking tribes disagreed on when to attack and were unable to co-ordinate. The first attack was met with gunfire from 1000 m; the tribesmen stood firm for about fifteen minutes, then they broke and retreated. After the first attack, a second column of 1,200 men advanced from the east. Some of these attackers were able to get within three paces of the firing line before they were killed.[2]

While this was the apex of the uprising, the Ngoni people decided to join in the revolt with a force of 5,000. The Muslim Gwangara Ngoni were relatively recent arrivals in the region, descendants of a remnant of the Ndwandwe confederation defeated by the Zulus in 1818 (other Ngoni states were formed in Malawi, Zambia, and north-central Tanzania). German troops, armed with machine guns, departed from Mahenge to the Ngoni camp, which they attacked on 21 October. The Ngoni soldiers retreated, throwing away their bottles of war medicine and crying, "The maji is a lie!"[citation needed] Upon the outbreak of the fighting, Count Gustav Adolf von Götzen, governor of German East Africa, had requested reinforcements from the German government. Kaiser Wilhelm immediately ordered two cruisers with their Marine complements to the troubled colony.[2] Reinforcements also arrived from as far away as New Guinea. When 1,000 regular soldiers from Germany arrived in October, Götzen felt he could go on the offensive and restore order in the south.

Three columns moved into the rebellious South. They destroyed villages, crops, and other food sources used by the rebels. They made effective use of their firepower to break up rebel attacks. A successful ambush of a German column crossing the Rufiji River by the Bena kept the rebellion alive in the southwest, but the Germans were not to be denied for long. By April 1906, the southwest had been pacified. However, elsewhere the fighting was bitter. A column under Lt. Gustav von Blumenthal (1879–1913, buried at Lindi) consisting of himself, one other European and 46 Askaris fell under continuous attack as it marched in early May 1906, from Songea to Mahenge. The Germans decided to concentrate at Kitanda, where Major Johannes, Lt. von Blumenthal and Lt. von Lindeiner-Wildau eventually gathered. Von Blumenthal was then sent along the Luwegu River, partly by boat. The southeast campaign degenerated into a guerrilla war that brought with it a devastating famine.[2]

The famine following the Maji Maji Rebellion was partly deliberate. Von Götzen was willing to pardon the common soldiers who gave up their weapons, leaders and witch doctors. However, he also needed to flush out the remaining rebels and so chose famine. In 1905, one of the leaders of German troops in the colony, Captain Wangenheim, wrote to von Götzen, "Only hunger and want can bring about a final submission. Military actions alone will remain more or less a drop in the ocean."[4]

Not until August 1907 were the last embers of rebellion extinguished. In its wake, the rebellion had left 15 Europeans and 389 native soldiers and tens or even hundreds of thousands[5][6] of insurgents and innocent bystanders dead. It also broke the spirit of the people to resist, and the colony remained calm, partly because of a new governor, who brought a more enlightened regime, until the outbreak of World War I.

The Wahehe Rebellion of 1891–1898 is viewed by historians as a precursor of the Maji Maji uprising. The suppression of the Maji Maji people changed the history of southern Tanzania. Tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of people died or were displaced from their homes. In the wake of the war, the imperial government instituted administrative reforms, and by the outbreak of the First World War, Tanganyika could be said to be among the better-administered European colonies in Africa. The rebellion became a focal point in the history of the region. Later Tanzanian nationalists used it as an example of the first stirrings of Tanzanian nationalism, a unifying experience that brought together all the different peoples of Tanzania under one leader, in an attempt to establish a nation free from foreign domination.

Later historians have challenged that view and claimed that the rebellion cannot be seen as a unified movement but rather a series of revolts conducted for a wide range of reasons, including religion. The Muslim Ngoni chiefs were offered Christian baptism before execution. Many people in the area itself saw the revolt as one part of a longer series of wars continuing since long before the arrival of Germans in the region. They cite the alliance of some groups with the Germans to further their own agendas.

1.
Scramble for Africa
–
The Scramble for Africa was the invasion, occupation, division, colonization and annexation of African territory by European powers during the period of New Imperialism, between 1881 and 1914. It is also called the Partition of Africa and the Conquest of Africa, in 1870, only 10 percent of Africa was under European control, by 1914 it had increased to 90 percent of the continent, with only Ethiopia, the Dervish state and Liberia still being independent. The Berlin Conference of 1884, which regulated European colonization and trade in Africa, is referred to as the starting point of the scramble for Africa. The latter years of the 19th century saw the transition from informal imperialism, by influence and economic dominance, to direct rule. But Europeans showed comparatively little interest in the interior for some two centuries thereafter, European exploration of the African interior began in earnest at the end of the 18th century. By 1835, Europeans had mapped most of northwestern Africa, in the middle decades of the 19th century, famous European explorers included David Livingstone and H. M. Stanley, each of whom mapped vast areas of Southern Africa and Central Africa. Arduous expeditions in the 1850s and 1860s by Richard Burton, John Speke and James Grant located the central lakes. By the end of the 19th century Europeans had charted the Nile from its source, traced the courses of the Niger, Congo and Zambezi Rivers, and realized the vast resources of Africa. Even as late as the 1870s, European states still controlled only ten percent of the African continent, the most important holdings were Angola and Mozambique, held by Portugal, the Cape Colony, held by the United Kingdom, and Algeria, held by France. By 1914, only Ethiopia and Liberia remained independent of European control, technological advances facilitated European expansion overseas. Industrialisation brought about rapid advancements in transportation and communication, especially in the forms of navigation, railways. Medical advances also played an important role, especially medicines for tropical diseases, the development of quinine, an effective treatment for malaria, made vast expanses of the tropics more accessible for Europeans. Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the last regions of the largely untouched by informal imperialism, was also attractive to Europes ruling elites for economic. In addition, surplus capital was more profitably invested overseas, where cheap materials, limited competition. Additionally, Britain wanted the southern and eastern coasts of Africa for stopover ports on the route to Asia and its empire in India. However, in Africa – excluding the area became the Union of South Africa in 1910 – the amount of capital investment by Europeans was relatively small. Consequently, the involved in tropical African commerce were relatively small. Rhodes had carved out Rhodesia for himself, Léopold II of Belgium later, John A. Hobson argued in Imperialism that this shrinking of continental markets was a key factor of the global New Imperialism period

2.
German East Africa
–
German East Africa was a German colony in the African Great Lakes region, which included what are now Burundi, Rwanda, and the mainland part of present Tanzania. Its area was 994,996 km2, nearly three times the area of present-day Germany, the colony was organized when the German military was called upon to put down a revolt against the activities of a colonial company during the late 1880s. It ended with Imperial Germanys defeat in World War I, ultimately it was divided between Britain and Belgium and reorganized as a mandate of the League of Nations. Like other powers, the Germans expanded their empire in the Africa Great Lakes region on the basis of fighting slavery, unlike other imperial powers, however, they never actually formally abolished it, preferring instead to curtail the production of new recruits and regulate the extant slaving business. The colony began with Carl Peters, an adventurer who founded the Society for German Colonization, on 3 March 1885, the German government announced it had granted an imperial charter to Peters company and intended to establish a protectorate in the Africa Great Lakes region. Peters then recruited specialists, who began exploring south to the Rufiji River and north to Witu, the British and Germans agreed to divide the mainland between themselves, and the Sultan had no option but to agree. The Abushiri Revolt of 1888 was put down the following year, in 1890, London and Berlin concluded the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty, returning Heligoland to Germany and deciding on the borders of German East Africa. Between 1891 and 1894, the Hehe tribe, led by Chief Mkwawa and they were defeated because rival tribes supported the Germans. After years of warfare, Mkwawa himself was cornered and committed suicide in 1898. The Maji Maji Rebellion occurred in 1905 and was put down by the governor, but scandal soon followed, with stories of corruption and brutality, and in 1907 Chancellor Bülow appointed Bernhard Dernburg to reform the colonial administration. It became a model of efficiency and commanded extraordinary loyalty among the natives during the First World War. German colonial administrators relied heavily on native chiefs to keep order, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, was a successful general in German East Africa during World War I. Commerce and growth started in earnest under German direction, early on it was realized that economic development would depend on reliable transportation. Over 100,000 acres were under sisal cultivation – the biggest cash crop, two million coffee trees were planted and rubber trees grew on 200,000 acres, along with large cotton plantations. To bring these agricultural products to market, beginning in 1888, the longest line, the Central Railroad covered 775 miles from Dar es Salaam to Morogoro, Tabora and Kigoma. The final link to the shore of Lake Tanganyika had been completed in July 1914 and was cause for a huge and festive celebration in the capital with an agricultural fair. Harbor facilities were built or improved with electrical cranes, with rail access, wharves were remodeled at Tanga, Bagamoyo and Lindi. In 1912 Dar es Salaam and Tanga received 356 freighters and passenger steamers and over 1,000 coastal ships and local trading vessels

3.
Tanzania
–
Tanzania /ˌtænzəˈniːə/, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in Eastern Africa within the African Great Lakes region. Parts of the country are in Southern Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro, Africas highest mountain, is in northeastern Tanzania. Tanzanias population of 51.82 million is diverse, composed of ethnic, linguistic. Dar es Salaam, the capital, retains most government offices and is the countrys largest city, principal port. Tanzania is a one party dominant state with the Chama Cha Mapinduzi party in power, from its formation until 1992, it was the only legally permitted party in the country. Elections for president and all National Assembly seats were last held in October 2015, the CCM holds approximately 75% of the seats in the assembly. Prehistoric population migrations include Southern Cushitic speakers, who are ancestral to the Iraqw, Gorowa, and Burunge and who moved south from Ethiopia into Tanzania. Based on linguistic evidence, there may also have two movements into Tanzania of Eastern Cushitic people at about 4,000 and 2,000 years ago. These movements took place at about the time as the settlement of the iron-making Mashariki Bantu from West Africa in the Lake Victoria. They brought with them the west African planting tradition and the staple of yams. They subsequently migrated out of these regions across the rest of Tanzania, European colonialism began in mainland Tanzania during the late 19th century when Germany formed German East Africa, which gave way to British rule following World War I. The mainland was governed as Tanganyika, with the Zanzibar Archipelago remaining a separate colonial jurisdiction, following their respective independence in 1961 and 1963, the two entities merged in April 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. Tanzania is mountainous and densely forested in the northeast, where Mount Kilimanjaro is located, three of Africas Great Lakes are partly within Tanzania. To the north and west lie Lake Victoria, Africas largest lake, and Lake Tanganyika, the eastern shore is hot and humid, with the Zanzibar Archipelago just offshore. The Menai Bay Conservation Area is Zanzibars largest marine protected area, over 100 different languages are spoken in Tanzania, making it the most linguistically diverse country in East Africa. Among the languages spoken in Tanzania are all four of Africas language families, Bantu, Cushitic, Nilotic, Swahili and English are Tanzanias official languages. In connection with his Ujamaa social policies, President Nyerere encouraged the use of Swahili, approximately 10% of Tanzanians speak Swahili as a first language, and up to 90% speak it as a second language. Most Tanzanians thus speak both Swahili and a language, many educated Tanzanians are trilingual, also speaking English

4.
German Empire
–
The German Empire was the historical German nation state that existed from the unification of Germany in 1871 to the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1918, when Germany became a federal republic. The German Empire consisted of 26 constituent territories, with most being ruled by royal families and this included four kingdoms, six grand duchies, five duchies, seven principalities, three free Hanseatic cities, and one imperial territory. Although Prussia became one of kingdoms in the new realm, it contained most of its population and territory. Its influence also helped define modern German culture, after 1850, the states of Germany had rapidly become industrialized, with particular strengths in coal, iron, chemicals, and railways. In 1871, it had a population of 41 million people, and by 1913, a heavily rural collection of states in 1815, now united Germany became predominantly urban. During its 47 years of existence, the German Empire operated as an industrial, technological, Germany became a great power, boasting a rapidly growing rail network, the worlds strongest army, and a fast-growing industrial base. In less than a decade, its navy became second only to Britains Royal Navy, after the removal of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck by Wilhelm II, the Empire embarked on a bellicose new course that ultimately led to World War I. When the great crisis of 1914 arrived, the German Empire had two allies, Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, however, left the once the First World War started in August 1914. In the First World War, German plans to capture Paris quickly in autumn 1914 failed, the Allied naval blockade caused severe shortages of food. Germany was repeatedly forced to send troops to bolster Austria and Turkey on other fronts, however, Germany had great success on the Eastern Front, it occupied large Eastern territories following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. German declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917 was designed to strangle the British, it failed, but the declaration—along with the Zimmermann Telegram—did bring the United States into the war. Meanwhile, German civilians and soldiers had become war-weary and radicalised by the Russian Revolution and this failed, and by October the armies were in retreat, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire had collapsed, Bulgaria had surrendered and the German people had lost faith in their political system. The Empire collapsed in the November 1918 Revolution as the Emperor and all the ruling monarchs abdicated, and a republic took over. The German Confederation had been created by an act of the Congress of Vienna on 8 June 1815 as a result of the Napoleonic Wars, German nationalism rapidly shifted from its liberal and democratic character in 1848, called Pan-Germanism, to Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarcks pragmatic Realpolitik. He envisioned a conservative, Prussian-dominated Germany, the war resulted in the Confederation being partially replaced by a North German Confederation in 1867, comprising the 22 states north of the Main. The new constitution and the title Emperor came into effect on 1 January 1871, during the Siege of Paris on 18 January 1871, William accepted to be proclaimed Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. The second German Constitution was adopted by the Reichstag on 14 April 1871 and proclaimed by the Emperor on 16 April, the political system remained the same. The empire had a parliament called the Reichstag, which was elected by universal male suffrage, however, the original constituencies drawn in 1871 were never redrawn to reflect the growth of urban areas

5.
French conquest of Tunisia
–
The French protectorate of Tunisia that was established lasted until the independence of Tunisia on 20 March 1956. Tunisia had been a province of the Ottoman Empire since the Conquest of Tunis, in 1770, Admiral De Broves for Louis XV bombarded the cities of Bizerte, Porto Farina and Monastir in retaliation for acts of piracy. In the 19th century Tunisian commercial contacts with Europe were numerous, France had also made a major loan to Tunisia in the mid-19th century. The Tunisian government was weak, with an inefficient tax system that brought it one-fifth of the tax collected. The economy was crippled with a series of droughts and the elimination of corsairs by Western fleets, lastly, Tunisians had little control on foreign trade as ancient 16th century agreements with European powers limited custom taxes to 3%. As a result, its industry was devastated by imports. Following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, Frances international prestige was severely damaged, the Italian representative failed through clumsiness, but the British representative Richard Wood was more successful. In order to limit French influence, Wood obtained the reinstatement of Tunisia as a province of the Ottoman Empire in 1871, Great Britain continued to try to exert influence through commercial ventures, these were not successful, however. There were also various Tunisian land ownership disputes among France, Britain, the French wished to take control of Tunisia, neighbour of the French colony of Algeria, and to suppress Italian and British influence there. At the Congress of Berlin in 1878, an arrangement was made for France to take over Tunisia while Great Britain obtained control of Cyprus from the Ottomans. Finally, the use of Tunisian territory as a sanctuary by rebel Khroumir bands gave a pretext for the military intervention, on 28 April 1881,28,000 men under General Forgemol de Bostquénard entered Tunisia. On 1 May, the city of Bizerte surrendered to the 8,000 men of Jules Aimé Bréart, Bréart entered Tunis between May 3 and May 6,1881. He had in his possession the Bardo Treaty establishing a protectorate on Tunisia, surprised, Sadok Bey requested several hours for reflection, and immediately gathered his cabinet. Some of its members insisted that the bey should escape towards Kairouan to organize the resistance, the Bardo Treaty was signed by both parties, under the threat of the French troops on 12 May 1881. An insurrection soon broke out in the south on 10 June 1881, six ironclads were dispatched from Toulon to join the French Navy ships in Tunisian waters. In Sfax, three ironclads from the Division of the Levant were already present, together with four cannon boats, Sfax was bombarded, and on 16 July the city was invested after hard fighting, with 7 dead and 32 wounded for the French. At Kairouan 32,000 men,6,000 horses and 20,000 tons of supplies, Kairouan was taken without a fight on 28 October 1881. Great Britain and Germany silently approved the invasion of the country, in 1882, Paul Cambon energetically took advantage of his position as Resident, leaving the Bey essentially powerless, and in effect administering Tunisia as another French colony

6.
Mahdist War
–
Eighteen years of war resulted in the joint-rule state of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, a condominium of the British Empire and the Kingdom of Egypt. Following the invasion by Muhammad Ali in 1819, Sudan was governed by an Egyptian administration, because of the heavy taxes it imposed and because of the bloody start of the Turkish-Egyptian rule in Sudan, this colonial system was resented by the Sudanese people. Throughout the period of Turco-Egyptian rule, many segments of the Sudanese population suffered extreme hardship because of the system of taxation imposed by the central government. Under this system, a tax was imposed on farmers and small traders. In bad years, and especially during times of drought and famine, fearing the brutal and unjust methods of the Shaiqiyya, many farmers fled their villages in the fertile Nile Valley to the remote areas of Kordofan and Darfur. The jallaba were also known to be slave trading tribes, by the middle 19th century the Ottoman Imperial subject administration in Egypt was in the hands of Khedive Ismail. Thus an ever increasing British role in Egyptian affairs seemed necessary and this commission eventually forced Khedive Ismail to abdicate in favor of his son Tawfiq in 1877, leading to a period of political turmoil. Also in 1873, Ismail had appointed General Charles Chinese Gordon Governor of the Equatorial Provinces of Sudan, for the next three years, General Gordon fought against a native chieftain of Darfur, Al-Zubayr Rahma Mansur. Upon Ismails abdication in 1877, Gordon found himself with dramatically decreased support, exhausted by years of work, he resigned his post in 1880 and left early the next year. His policies were soon abandoned by the new governors, but the anger, another widely reported potential source of frustration was the Turco-Egyptian abolition of the slave trade, one of the main sources of income in Sudan at the time. In the 1870s, a Muslim cleric named Muhammad Ahmad preached renewal of the faith and liberation of the land, soon in open revolt against the Egyptians, Muhammad Ahmad proclaimed himself the Mahdi, the promised redeemer of the Islamic world. In August 1881 the then-governor of the Sudan, Raouf Pasha, the captains of the two companies were each promised promotion if their soldiers were the ones to return the Mahdi to the governor. Both companies disembarked from the steamer that had brought them up the Nile to Aba Island, arriving simultaneously, each force began to fire blindly on the other, allowing the Mahdis scant followers to attack and destroy each force in turn at the Battle of Aba. The Mahdi then began a retreat to Kordofan, where he was at a distance from the seat of government in Khartoum. This movement, couched as a progress, incited many of the Arab tribes to rise in support of the Jihad the Mahdi had declared against the Turkish oppressors. Another Egyptian expedition dispatched from Fashoda was ambushed and slaughtered on the night of 9 December 1881, the Mahdi also legitimized his movement by drawing deliberate parallels to the life of the Prophet Muhammad. He called his followers Ansar, after the people who greeted the Prophet in Medina, and he called his flight from the British, the hijrah, after the Prophets flight from the Quraysh. The Egyptian administration in the Sudan, now thoroughly concerned by the scale of the uprising and this force approached the Mahdist gathering, whose members were poorly clothed, half starving, and armed only with sticks and stones

7.
Anglo-Egyptian War
–
The Anglo-Egyptian War occurred in 1882 between Egyptian and Sudanese forces under Ahmed ‘Urabi and the United Kingdom. It ended a nationalist uprising against the Khedive Tewfik Pasha and vastly expanded British influence over the country, in January 1882 the British and French governments sent a Joint Note to the Egyptian government, declaring their recognition of the Khedives authority. On 20 May 1882, British and French warships arrived off the coast of Alexandria, on 11 June 1882, an anti-Christian riot occurred in Alexandria that killed 50 Europeans. Colonel ‘Urabi ordered his forces to put down the riot, but Europeans fled the city, the reasons why the British government sent a fleet of ships to the coast of Alexandria is a point of historical debate, as there is no definitive information available. May I also venture to say that it has given the Liberal Party a new lease of popularity, first, they describe a plot by Edward Malet in which he portrayed the Egyptian government as unstable to his superiors in the cabinet. The British fleet bombarded Alexandria from 11–13 July and then occupied it with marines, the British did not lose a single ship, but much of the city was destroyed by fires caused by explosive shells and by ‘Urabists seeking to ruin the city that the British were taking over. Tewfik Pasha, who had moved his court to Alexandria during the unrest, declared ‘Urabi a rebel, ‘Urabi then reacted by obtaining a fatwa from Al Azhar shaykhs which condemned Tewfik as a traitor to both his country and religion, absolving those who fought against him. ‘Urabi also declared war on the United Kingdom and initiated conscription, the British army tried to reach Cairo through Alexandria but was stopped for five weeks at Kafr El Dawwar. In August, a British army of over 40,000, commanded by Garnet Wolseley and he was authorised to destroy ‘Urabis forces and clear the country of all other rebels. The engineer troops had left England for Egypt in July and August 1882, the engineers included pontoon, railway and telegraph troops. Wolseley saw the campaign as a challenge as he did not believe the Egyptians would put up much resistance. Seeking to ascertain the strength of the Egyptians Kafr El Dawwar position and this action was reported by Orabi as a battle, and Cairo was full of the news that the advancing British had been repulsed. While, most historians describe the action merely as a reconnaissance in force which was never intended as an assault on the Egyptian lines. However, the end result was that the British abandoned any hope they may have had of reaching Cairo from the north, Wolseley arrived at Alexandria on 15 August and immediately began to organize the movement of troops through the Suez Canal to Ismailia. This was quickly accomplished, Ismailia was occupied on 20 August without resistance, Ismailia was quickly reinforced with 9,000 troops, with the engineers put to work repairing the railway line from Suez. A small force was pushed along the Sweet Water Canal to the Kassassin lock arriving on 26 August, the main body of the army started to move up to Kassassin and planning for the battle at Tell El Kebir was undertaken. Skirmishing took place but did not interfere with the build up, on 12 September all was ready and during that night the army marched to battle. 13 September 1882 - Urabi redeployed to defend Cairo against Wolseley and his main force dug in at Tell El Kebir, north of the railway and the Sweet Water Canal, both of which linked Cairo to Ismailia on the canal

8.
Second Franco-Dahomean War
–
The French emerged triumphant and incorporated Dahomey into their growing colonial territory of French West Africa. The Fon ceased hostilities with the French after two defeats, withdrawing their forces and signing a treaty conceding to all of Frances demands. However, Dahomey remained a potent force in the area and quickly re-armed with modern weapons in anticipation of a second, after re-arming and regrouping, the Fon returned to raiding the Ouémé Valley, the same valley fought over in the first war with France. Victor Ballot, the French Resident at Porto-Novo, was sent via gunboat upriver to investigate and his ship was attacked and forced to depart with five men wounded in the incident. King Benhanzin rejected complaints by the French, and war was declared immediately by the French, the French entrusted the war effort against Dahomey to Alfred-Amédée Dodds, an octoroon colonel of the Troupes de marine from Senegal. Colonel Dodds arrived with a force of 2,164 men including Foreign Legionnaires, marines, engineers, artillery and these forces were armed with the new Lebel rifles, which would prove decisive in the coming battle. The French protectorate kingdom of Porto-Novo also added some 2,600 porters to aid in the fight, the Fon, prior to the outbreak of the second war, had stockpiled between 4,000 and 6,000 rifles including Mannlicher and Winchester carbines. These were purchased from German merchants via the port of Whydah, King Béhanzin also bought some machine-guns and Krupp cannons, but it is unknown that these were ever put to use. On June 15,1892, the French blockaded Dahomeys coast to prevent any further arms sales, then, on July 4, the first shots of the war were fired from French gunboats with the shelling of several villages along the lower Ouémé Valley. The carefully organized French army began moving inland in mid-August toward their destination of the Dahomey capital of Abomey. The French invasion force assembled at the village of Dogba on September 14, some 50 miles upriver on the border of Dahomey, at around 5 a. m. on September 19, the French force was attacked by the army of Dahomey. The Fon broke off the attack after three to four hours of fighting, characterized by repeated attempts by the Fon for melee combat. Hundreds of Fon were left dead on the field with the French forces suffering only five dead, the French forces moved another 15 miles upriver before turning west in the direction of Abomey. On October 4, the French column was attacked at Poguessa by Fon forces under the command of King Béhanzin himself, the Fon staged several fierce charges over two to three hours that all failed against the 20-inch bayonets of the French. The Dahomey army left the field in defeat losing some 200 soldiers, the French carried the day with only 42 casualties. The Dahomey Amazons were also conspicuous in the battle, after the hard-fought victory at Poguessa, the Fon resorted to guerilla tactics rather than set-piece engagements. It took the French invasion force a month to march the 25 miles between Poguessa and the last major battle at Cana just outside Abomey, the Fon dug foxholes and trenches in their desperate battle to slow the French invasion. On October 6, the French had another encounter with the Fon at the village of Adégon

9.
Anglo-Ashanti wars
–
The wars were mainly due to Ashanti attempts to establish strong control over the coastal areas of what is now Ghana. Coastal peoples, such as the Fante and the inhabitants of Accra, in the Ga-Fante War of 1811, the Akwapim captured a British fort at Tantamkweri and a Dutch fort at Apam. In the Ashanti-Akim-Akwapim War of 1814–16 the Ashanti defeated the Akim-Akwapim alliance, local British, Dutch, and Danish authorities all had to come to terms with the Ashanti. The African Company of Merchants was dissolved in 1821 and the British assumed control of the Gold Coast, by the 1820s the British had decided to support one of the other tribes, the Fanti, enemies of the Ashanti. Inland, the Ashanti kings who ruled from the Golden Stool, said to have come from their great god guardian of the Ashanti soul, Nyame, economic and social friction played their part in the causes for the outbreak of violence. The immediate cause of the war happened when a group of Ashanti kidnapped and murdered an African sergeant of the Royal African Corps, a small British group was led into a trap which resulted in 10 killed,39 wounded and a British retreat. The Ashanti tried to negotiate but the British governor, Sir Charles MacCarthy, rejected Ashanti claims to Fanti areas of the coast and this started the First Anglo-Ashanti War which ran until 1831. The British were overrun, suffered losses, and ran out of ammunition, almost all the British force were killed immediately, only around 20 managed to escape. MacCarthy, along with the ensign and his secretary, attempted to back, he was wounded by gunfire, however. Ensign Wetherell was killed whilst trying to defend MacCarthys body and Williams taken prisoner, mcCarthys gold-rimmed skull was later used as a drinking-cup by the Ashanti rulers. On Mr Williamss recovering his senses, he saw the headless trunks of Sir Charles McCarthy, Mr Buckle, and Ensign Wetherell. During his captivity he was lodged under a shed in the same rooms as the heads which. Major Alexander Gordon Laing returned to Britain with news of their fate, the Ashanti swept down to the coast, but disease forced them back. The new governor of the Gold Coast, John Hope Smith, started to gather a new army, mainly comprising natives, including Denkyiras, in August 1826 the governor heard that the Ashanti were planning on attacking Accra. A defensive position was prepared on the open plain 10 miles north of Accra, on 7 August the Ashanti army appeared and attacked the centre of the British line where the best troops were held, which included some Royal Marines, the militia and a battery of Congreve rockets. The battle dissolved into hand-to-hand fighting but the Ashanti force were not doing well on their flanks whilst they looked like winning in the centre. The novelty of the weapons, the explosions, rocket trails, soon they fled leaving thousands of casualties on the field. In 1831, the Pra River was accepted as the border in a treaty, in 1863, a large Ashanti delegation crossed the Pra river pursuing a fugitive, Kwesi Gyana

10.
First Italo-Ethiopian War
–
The First Italo-Ethiopian War was fought between Italy and Ethiopia from 1895 to 1896. It originated from a treaty which, the Italians claimed, turned the country into an Italian protectorate. Full-scale war broke out in 1895, with Italian troops having initial success until Ethiopian troops counterattacked Italian positions and besieged the Italian fort of Meqele, forcing its surrender. Italian defeat came about after the Battle of Adwa, where the Ethiopian army dealt the heavily outnumbered Italians a decisive loss and forced their retreat back into Eritrea. This was not the first African victory over Western colonizers, according to one historian, In an age of relentless European expansion, Ethiopia alone had successfully defended its independence. The Khedive of Egypt Ismail Pasha, Ismail the Magnificent had conquered Eritrea as part of his efforts to give Egypt an African empire, Ismail had tried to follow that conquest with Ethiopia, but the Egyptian attempts to conquer that realm ended in humiliating defeat. Egypt had very much in the French sphere of influence until 1882 when Britain occupied Egypt. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 had turned the Horn of Africa into a strategic region as a navy based in the Horn could interdict any shipping going up. By building naval bases on the Red Sea that could intercept British shipping in the Red Sea, the French hoped to reduce the value of the Suez Canal for the British, and thus lever them out of Egypt. On 3 June 1884, a treaty was signed between Britain, Egypt and Ethiopia that allowed the Ethiopians to occupy parts of Eritrea and allowed the Ethiopian goods to pass in and out of Massawa duty-free. After initially encouraging the Emperor Yohannes IV to move into Eritrea to replace the Egyptians, in 1882, Italy had joined the Triple Alliance, allying herself with Austria and Germany against France. On 5 February 1885 Italian troops landed at Massawa to replace the Egyptians, the Italian government for its part was more than happy to embark upon an imperialist policy to distract its people from the failings in post Risorgimento Italy. To compensate, a chauvinist mood was rampant in Italy with the newspaper Il Diritto writing in an editorial, the year 1885 will decide her fate as a great power. It is necessary to feel the responsibility of the new era, to become again strong men afraid of nothing, with the love of the fatherland, of all Italy. On March 25,1889, the Shewa ruler Menelik II, having conquered Tigray and Amhara, Menelik II continued the policy of Tewodros II of integrating Ethiopia. However, the treaty did not say the same thing in Italian and Amharic. Italian diplomats, however, claimed that the original Amharic text included the clause, moreover, Menelik did not know Italian and only signed the Amharic text of the treaty, being assured that there were no differences between the Italian and Amharic texts before he signed. Francesco Crispi, the Italian Prime Minister was an ultra-imperialist who believed the newly unified Italian state required the grandeur of a second Roman empire, Crispi believed that the Horn of Africa was the best place for the Italians to start building the new Roman empire

11.
Second Matabele War
–
It pitted the British South Africa Company against the Ndebele people, which led to conflict with the Shona people in the rest of Rhodesia. In March 1896, the Ndebele revolted against the authority of the British South Africa Company in what is now celebrated in Zimbabwe as the First Chimurenga, the Mlimo the Ndebele spiritual leader, is credited with fomenting much of the anger that led to this confrontation. He convinced the Ndebele and the Shona that the settlers were responsible for the drought, locust plagues, the Mlimos call to battle was well-timed. This left the country nearly defenceless, the British immediately sent troops to suppress the Ndebele and the Shona, but it cost the lives of many on both sides. Months passed before the amount of British forces were adequate to break the sieges and defend the major settlements, the Mlimo planned to wait until the night of 29 March, the first full moon, to take Bulawayo by surprise immediately after a ceremony called the Big Dance. He promised, through his priests, that if the Ndebele went to war and his plan was to kill all of the settlers in Bulawayo first, but not to destroy the town itself as it would serve again as the royal kraal for the newly reincarnated King Lobengula. Once the settlers were purged from Bulawayo, the Ndebele and Shona warriors would head out into the countryside, however, several young Ndebele were overly anxious to go to war, and the rebellion started prematurely. On 20 March, Ndebele rebels shot and stabbed a native policeman, over the next few days, other outlying settlers and prospectors were killed. Frederick Selous, the famous hunter, had heard rumours of settlers in the countryside being killed. When news of the murder reached Selous on 23 March. Nearly 2,000 Ndebele warriors began the rebellion in earnest on 24 March, many, although not all, of the young native police quickly deserted and joined the rebels. The Ndebele headed into the countryside armed with a variety of weapons, including, Martini-Henry rifles, Winchester repeaters, Lee-Metfords, assegais, as news of the massive rebellion spread, the Shona joined in the fighting, and the settlers headed towards Bulawayo. Within a week,141 settlers were slain in Matabeleland, another 103 killed in Mashonaland, with few troops to support them, the settlers quickly built a laager of sandbagged wagons in the centre of Bulawayo on their own. Barbed wire was added to Bulawayos defences, oil-soaked fagots were arranged in strategic locations in case of attack at night. Blasting gelatin was secreted in outlying buildings that were beyond the defence perimeter, smashed glass bottles were spread around the front of the wagons. Except for hunting rifles, there were few weapons to be found in Bulawayo, fortunately for settlers, there were a few working artillery pieces and a small assortment of machine guns. Selous raised a troop of forty men to scout southward into the Matobo Hills. Maurice Gifford, along with 40 men, rode east along the Iniza River, whenever settlers were found, they were quickly loaded into their wagons and closely guarded on their way to Bulawayo

12.
Anglo-Zanzibar War
–
The Anglo-Zanzibar War was a military conflict fought between the United Kingdom and the Zanzibar Sultanate on 27 August 1896. The conflict lasted between 38 and 45 minutes, marking it as the shortest recorded war in history, the immediate cause of the war was the death of the pro-British Sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini on 25 August 1896 and the subsequent succession of Sultan Khalid bin Barghash. The British authorities preferred Hamud bin Muhammed, who was favourable to British interests. The British considered this a casus belli and sent an ultimatum to Khalid demanding that he order his forces to stand down, in response, Khalid called up his palace guard and barricaded himself inside the palace. The ultimatum expired at 09,00 East Africa Time on 27 August, the Royal Navy contingent were under the command of Rear-Admiral Harry Rawson while their Zanzibaris were commanded by Brigadier-General Lloyd Mathews of the Zanzibar army. Around 2,800 Zanzibaris defended the palace, most were recruited from the civilian population, the defenders had several artillery pieces and machine guns, which were set in front of the palace sighted at the British ships. A bombardment opened at 09,02 set the palace on fire, the flag at the palace was shot down and fire ceased at 09,40. The sultans forces sustained roughly 500 casualties, while only one British sailor was injured, Sultan Khalid received asylum in the German consulate before escaping to German East Africa. The British quickly placed Sultan Hamud in power at the head of a puppet government, the war marked the end of the Zanzibar Sultanate as a sovereign state and the start of a period of heavy British influence. Zanzibar was a country in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Tanganyika. The main island, Unguja, had been under the control of the Sultans of Oman since 1698 when they expelled the Portuguese settlers who had claimed it in 1499. Sultan Majid bin Said declared the independent of Oman in 1858, which was recognised by Great Britain. The subsequent sultans established their capital and seat of government at Zanzibar Town where a complex was built on the sea front. The complex was constructed of local timber and was not designed as a defensive structure. All three main buildings were adjacent to one another in a line, and linked by wooden covered bridges above street height. Britain had recognised Zanzibars sovereignty and its sultanate in 1886, after a period of friendly interaction. However, Germany was also interested in East Africa, and the two powers vied for control of trade rights and territory in the area throughout the late 19th century. Sultan Khalifah had granted rights to the land of Kenya to Britain and that of Tanganyika to Germany, many of the Arab ruling classes were upset by this interruption of a valuable trade, which resulted in some unrest

The Mahdist War (Arabic: الثورة المهدية‎ ath-Thawra al-Mahdī; 1881–99) was a British colonial war of the late 19th …

Image: Bataille d'Ondurman 2

Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed Mahdi.

This banner is a declaration of faith and allegiance into Allah, and was carried into battle by the Sudanese Mahdist Army. The color of the banner identifies the fighting unit. From Omdurman, 1898. The Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, UK. Given by Miss Victoria MacBean, 1929.